


Look Forward

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-14
Updated: 2011-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is looking for River after Demons Run, and has run out of ideas. Was there anyone who could give him a hint? There was only one person to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Forward

  
  
“Keep your eyes forward, and keep a firm watch,” the Guard said to his partner. “She’s dangerous.”   
  
“Only a very great deal,” River said with a smile. She blew the guards a kiss and walked in from the exercise yard. “Permission to return to my cell, officers?”   
  
“Granted,” said the prison officer, keeping his gun leveled.  
  
As River went past them she heard his partner ask, “Why are you so scared of her?”  
  
“If you knew what she’s done.”   
  
“Give me a break,” said the second one. “It’s obvious she’s only here because she wants to be.”  
  
“Exactly,” said the first officer. “That’s why she’s so dangerous.”   
  
River chuckled as she went down the halls of the Stormcage to her cell. The other inmates knew better than to whistle at her as she passed. They had learned very quickly not to mess with River Song, not to try and intimidate her, not to rifle her cell. It wasn’t worth it. But despite her towering reputation in the prison, there was someone illicitly in her cell when she got back. Someone who sat on her bed as if he belonged there.  
  
“Hello, Sweetie,” she said smiling. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”   
  
“Demons Run.”   
  
River’s smile died, and her heart twinged. “Best disable the cameras—” she began as the Doctor held up his screwdriver. “Continuous loop of the last twenty minutes before I arrived,” he said. “I need your help.”   
  
River was wary. “Before or after?” she asked.   
  
“After.”   
  
Her smile returned, though it wasn’t as broad as before. “Only just?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
She leaned against the bars. The Tardis was perched in the corner of her cell, crammed between the sink and her table. There was barely enough room to get the door open. “So you haven’t found me yet.”   
  
The Doctor hesitated. Then, “No,” he admitted.   
  
“They made it very difficult, you’re going to have a hard time.”  
  
“Give me a hint.”   
  
River shook her head. “I can’t do that, love. You know I can’t.”  
  
“Why not,” the Doctor muttered, mostly to himself.   
  
“It’s against the rules.”   
  
“Whose rules!” the Doctor almost shouted.   
  
“Yours.”   
  
“I haven’t written any rules.”  
  
River chuckled. “Then you’d better get started, hadn’t you.”   
  
“Gah!” The Doctor flung himself heavily against the wall, curled up atop the covers like a sulking teenager.   
  
River slid in and perched beside him. “You’re frustrated.”  
  
The Doctor only grumbled.   
  
River knew he was young, but she also knew she was given a great deal of leeway even when he was. Particularly now that he knew who she was — mostly. She slipped in under his arm and snuggled her head against his chest. The Doctor held her as if it was normal, so that was good. It was hard pinning down the progression of their relationship. The mention of Demons Run always made her want to be held, anyway. “You’ll find me,” she whispered into his chest. “I swear to you.”  
  
The Doctor sighed — she could hear the air as it passed through his lungs — a counterpoint to the rhythm of his hearts. It felt good to hold him.   
  
“When are you?” he asked.   
  
“Demons Run was a while ago.”  
  
“Hey, we’re evening out.”   
  
River shook her head. “We’re shuffled like a deck of cards. Lasts and firsts, ins and outs. I never know ‘when’ I’m going to meet you next.”   
  
“I let the Tardis decide mostly, you know.”   
  
“I know.”  
  
The Doctor looked down at her, and his fingers traveled over her face. They left tingles across her skin. “Was that you?” he asked. “In 1969?”  
  
“What do you mean?” River asked innocently.   
  
The Doctor scowled at her, and River dropped her coyness. “My memories of my early childhood are pretty sketchy,” she admitted. “The Silence were there pretty much constantly, so....”   
  
The Doctor’s scowl softened, and he caressed her cheek. “I’m sorry.”   
  
There was so much weight behind those two words. “You’re forgiven.”  
  
The Doctor closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. “What did I do to you?” he asked, almost to himself.   
  
River shifted until she was almost in his lap, her arm around his shoulders. “In what sense?”  
  
“Those shifts in your DNA. What do they mean?”  
  
River grinned, almost shyly. “I’m exceptional,” she said at last.   
  
“Good or bad?” the Doctor asked.   
  
“Yes.”   
  
He looked away, annoyed. River caressed his cheek. “I can’t say much. You know a lot of it already. I can fly the Tardis — better than you can.” The Doctor conceded that with a nod. “She rather likes me. She feels... an affinity. Like a mother.”   
  
The Doctor’s eyes traveled over River’s face for a moment.   
  
“If you were there in ‘69, you’ll know I’m... pretty strong. Accelerated hand eye co-ordination, so I’m a very good shot. I’ve...” she trailed off, and then swallowed. “I’ve got an exceptional memory,” she admitted. “I’ve forgotten a lot of what the Silence did, just because it’s impossible to do otherwise, but....” She hesitated. “I remember being born,” she said. “Quite a shock, really. And I remember Amy. And you...” Her eyes had gone distant and she faded off.   
  
“So you know I tried,” the Doctor whispered.   
  
“Yes, I know.”  
  
There was a long silence before she added, “I didn’t understand any of it at the time, I was pretty little.”   
  
The Doctor chuckled.   
  
“I analyzed it later. For years.”   
  
“Amy says she found a picture of herself. And you. In ‘69.”  
  
“Yes. They wanted me to know where I came from. Whose fault it was.” The Doctor searched her eyes. “They raised me to kill you.”   
  
“I know that,” the Doctor whispered. There was pain in his voice.   
  
River wanted to kiss him so badly she was burning. She licked her lips instead. This story hurt so much. Her childhood was hell, and she hated to think about it. “She didn’t even know me.” The words came out, and River didn’t know where they had come from. “She....” The shot, the screaming, as Amy fired the gun. ‘Please, help me,’ called the child’s voice in River’s mind.   
  
“Felt terrible. She would never have if she’d known.”  
  
“I know. But at the time, it...” River was trembling, but she would not cry. She would not. ‘Help me.’  
  
And then the Doctor kissed her, and all the horror and sadness melted away like snow under a summer sun. It was not wildly passionate, but it was tender, and so heartfelt. There was nothing in the universe but the Doctor when he kissed her. It was as if he completed an electric circuit between them. River sighed as their lips parted. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”  
  
“I’ve kissed you before. At least once.”   
  
“Three times the charm?” River asked slyly, and the Doctor grinned before he bent down again. This time the kiss was teasing, playful, and there were teeth in it. Both of them were smiling.   
  
When they broke, the Doctor gazed down at her with such love in his eyes — confused, tangled, worried and guilt-ridden love. It was so new for him. River’s heart fluttered wildly. His brow furrowed with concern. “Are you okay?” he asked her, and she knew he didn’t mean Now.   
  
“No,” River said. “I’m a little lost, in a lot of ways. But I can take care of myself. They saw to that.”  
  
The Doctor closed his eyes. “You will find me,” she promised him. She kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. It’ll be hard for both of us when you do.”  
  
“It’s hard on Amy and Rory now,” the Doctor said.   
  
River looked sad. “I know.” Oh, how she knew. “But they’ll be all right, too.”  
  
“How did they take it?”  
  
River smiled, the slightly annoyed smile of someone who knew him far too well. “Well, if you hadn’t run off, you’d know. I’d tell you, don’t you ever leave me with the ball like that again, but I know you will.”  
  
“You like it.”   
  
“Shut up,” she said, shaking her head. She sighed. “Amy cried. Then Rory cried. Then Amy cried again — she was a little overly hormonal, I don’t blame her. It was nice to finally be able to hug her, though. It’s hard when she doesn’t know who I am.”  
  
The Doctor caressed her hair and River snuggled up against his chest again. “They kept asking me questions I couldn’t answer," she said. "Do you have any idea... any idea how hard it is not to say things I shouldn’t?”   
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You just say them, anyway.”   
  
“You’re better at it than I am,” the Doctor admitted. “You always have been.”  
  
River looked sad. “They trained me to.”   
  
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said again.   
  
“You didn’t do it.”   
  
“It’s still my fault.”   
  
“I don’t know,” River said. “I stopped trying to analyze it, years ago. Fault and blame and who did what. It’s better just to look forward, rather than back. In the end it evens out. You suffer. I suffer. They suffer. Amy and Rory suffer. It doesn’t matter whose fault any of it was. Look down, drop a pebble — is it your fault where the ripples go?”   
  
“When they break up the universe, maybe.”   
  
“Doctor... you found the cracks before you made them, and Amy found them first. And you met me before you met Amy, yes?”  
  
There was a long silence before the Doctor admitted, “Yes.”   
  
“So. Maybe you didn’t drop the pebble. Maybe you just ARE the pebble. And it was the Tardis or fate or the universe who dropped you.”   
  
“On my head, maybe.”   
  
“Stop being maudlin,” River said sharply.   
  
The Doctor look at her, incredulous. “There’s more to who you are than who you are. Isn’t there.”  
  
“There’s more to you than who your parents were. Right?”  
  
The Doctor sighed and looked away.   
  
River caressed his cheek as she pulled his face back to hers. “I love you,” she whispered. “And I know you hate that word, but I don’t have a better one.”  
  
“How much do you know about me?” he murmured.   
  
“Everything they taught me, and everything I could learn from history, and everything you’ve told me yourself. Except I know that’s suspect.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Rule one. The Doctor lies.”   
  
“Is that my rule, or theirs?”  
  
River blinked at him. “Both.”   
  
The Doctor sighed and closed his eyes.   
  
“I’ll give you some advice,” River said. “Remember that rule. Because when you find me, you’re going to need it. I know it feels like a lie, because it’s just a word. But it’s an important word. It means nothing to you, but it means something to me. It means... everything I always wanted. Everything I never had.”  
  
The Doctor’s face was hard. “You want me to say that I love you.”   
  
“When you find me, I’ll WANT to kill you,” River snapped, and she pushed herself off his lap.   
  
“Somehow I get the feeling that desire is never going to go away.”   
  
“Not completely,” she grumbled.   
  
The Doctor stood up and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “You know how I feel,” he whispered in her ear. “I know you do. Does it need saying?”  
  
“There was too much noise in my head to know anything, then,” River whispered. She turned around and looked at him pointedly. “Besides. I don’t think YOU know how you feel, yet.” The Doctor looked away. River was right. She knew it. He was young, and this was new and so, so complicated. “Rule one. The Doctor lies.”   
  
“Did I assume the right lie?” the Doctor asked.   
  
River grinned. “You’ll know what to say. What lies to tell.”   
  
The Doctor looked down, and he looked so sad that River couldn’t stay annoyed. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her. He rested his head on her shoulder. “Forgive me,” he whispered.   
  
“Already have done,” River reminded him. She kissed his cheek. “Now you should go,” she said. “You’re too young. You don’t really know what you’re doing.”  
  
“You’re the only one in the universe who ever calls me young,” he breathed.  
  
“Ooh, sweet face,” River grinned. “You’ll always be young.” She kissed the tip of his nose and pushed him gently toward the Tardis. “Off with you. Go find me.”   
  
The Doctor kissed her forehead and opened the Tardis doors. River steeled herself for letting him go, again. It was what always had to happen, she knew that. Meeting and parting like twin moons in the sky.   
  
The Doctor paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “River?” She tilted her head toward him. “You’re wrong.” He stared at her for a long time before he opened his mouth again. “I knew how I’d feel the first day I met you.”  
  
River wanted to feel elated, but instead she felt fear. There was such sadness in his eyes. She looked down, and then back up at him, unable to find a word to say. Her hands were trembling.   
  
He turned away and the doors closed. The Tardis groaned and wheezed as he left, and River cringed — she wished he knew how to bypass the engine breaks. It didn’t help that the Tardis LIKED making that noise. It was the sound of a young Tardis, without a strong tempero-spacial lexicon who needed to keep herself controlled lest she go wildly spinning off into the ether, and the Tardis was well past that stage. Well. Everyone’s parents had eccentricities. River could never get over the time she’d caught Amy and Rory dressed up as... she turned her mind from the memory.  
  
As she climbed up on a chair to repair the monitor camera, she kept thinking about what the Doctor had said. “I knew how I’d feel...”  
  
She chuckled. He hadn’t said he felt that way yet. She shook her head. The Doctor lies. Every way he can.   
  
Oh, he had such a lot to look forward to!  
  



End file.
